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Narcissism
Does Narcissism Drive Your Urge to Compete?
New research on why we brag, and why we have to win.
Posted December 5, 2015
You’ve just discovered that you and your new neighbor share a love of baking. It’s exciting to think that you’ll be able to swap favorite recipes that will benefit you both. The only problem is that your neighbor's last comment was, “Yes, I’ve won several apple pie contests—people tell me I should open my own bakery.” You find yourself struggling with the impulse to reply, “My friends and family beg me to bake their special occasion cakes—and I’m a master of the fondant.” But something seems wrong about that. Why should you have to match, if not top, your neighbor’s pride?
Here’s another situation: You’ve always enjoyed being physically active, and now you’re ready to take on a charity marathon. After weeks of practice, you qualify for the race, and after even more practice, you come in second place. At a family gathering, you mention this accomplishment, and how much it meant to you to be able to participate. Out of the blue, an in-law exclaims, “I hate you! I’d never be able to do that!” Hate? That seems like a pretty strong word. Maybe he was just kidding, but the words stick anyway.
Let’s change these scenarios a bit:
Your neighbor, upon learning that you love to bake, instead replies “That’s so wonderful. We’ll have to swap our favorite recipes sometime. I’ve got a pretty good way of baking apple pie that you might like to try.” This response makes you feel excited about learning something new, rather than competitive. And what if, rather than proclaim hatred for your athleticism, your in-law expressed nothing but admiration. It would make you feel good to hear this praise for accomplishments that involved so much time and effort.
The competitiveness that drives us up to win at sports, sell more Girl Scout cookies, or enter home projects for judging at fairs is all a part of our natural motivation to express our competence and have it validated by others. When it turns cruel and vindictive, however, competitiveness can erode relationships. In extreme doses, competitiveness can mean that you don’t mind stepping over everyone else to get ahead, and that you feel completely deflated at a loss. Rather than enjoying the activity itself, you think of it only in terms of whether it can bring you recognition.
Competitiveness can also become part of your sexual relationships. This may show up in people who count, and broadcast, the number of partners they’ve had. Sexual competition can also occur when you want to beat out a potential rival for a target of affection just for the sake of winning, and not because you really care about the target person. Your rival becomes (understandably) angry with you and the person who you go on to have sex with and then dump feels betrayed and confused.
Because competitiveness is so destructive to relationships, romantic and otherwise, it seems like a worthwhile area in which to gain insight. Surprisingly, there is relatively little research on the topic, and what exists tends to look at the problem from an evolutionary perspective: In the days of the hunter-gatherers, men and women had to compete for sexual partners in order to keep the species alive. We carry this mentality into our modern world, or so the thinking goes, because we never really lost that primitive instinct.
Whether or not you endorse the role of evolution in shaping our present relationships, research within that tradition can help us understand the competitive motive. University of Durham (UK) psychologist Gregory Carter and colleagues (2015) examined both an evolutionary and a personality perspective in determining the factors that contribute to women’s competitiveness with each other, both sexual and non-sexual.
The personality perspective they used involved the so-called Dark Triad, which combines the dispositions to be manipulative, narcissistic, and psychopathic. You can gather that those high in Dark Triad traits would also be highly competitive: They want to rise above others and will walk all over anyone who gets in their way.
Using an online sample composed of both female undergraduates and other women up to the age of 40, Carter and his colleagues measured Dark Triad traits in relationship to two measures of competitiveness. The scale for sexual competition incorporated four components: self-promotion (wanting to look attractive to men); derogation of other women (pointing out flaws in the appearance of other women); manipulation of competitors (telling someone she looks good when she doesn’t); and manipulation of mates (getting to know a male partner’s male friends). The Durham team measured hypercompetitive attitudes by levels of agreement with such statements as “Winning in competition makes me feel more powerful as a person.”
As this was a correlational study, we don’t know what causes what. But interestingly, there didn’t seem to be a distinction in this sample between sexual and non-sexual competitiveness. Both were highly related to Dark Triad traits, but especially to narcissism. As the authors conclude, “Since these concepts are inexorably connected to status, attention and (perceived) admiration, this finding sits well with the established literature” (p. 278). Additionally, because sexual and non-sexual competitiveness didn’t differ, the findings might lead to a rethinking of the framework used by evolutionary psychology to understand the competitive motive.
Let’s return now to the basic question: How do you handle competitive people who get to you when they either try to show off their successes or condemn you for yours? The Carter et al. study suggests that you’re best off recognizing the narcissistic needs driving their response. They don’t like it when you shine—or win—because in doing so, you outshine them. So, just as you would handle someone whose inferiority is showing, you should similarly figure that their desire to top you comes from inner beliefs in their worthlessness. Rather than take the bait, allow them to vent and don’t up the ante yourself.
And what if you’re the competitive one? If you constantly feel a need to get into a bragging war, use those feelings as an opportunity gain insight into the source of this inferiority. Tell yourself that the accomplishments of others don’t take away from yours. Doing well in the world of relationships is not a zero-sum game.
The fulfillment that comes from winning is certainly a feeling that can enhance our lives. As long as it doesn’t come at the expense of others, it will continue to provide the emotional rewards it deserves.
Follow me on Twitter @swhitbo for daily updates on psychology, health, and aging. Feel free to join my Facebook group, "Fulfillment at Any Age," to discuss today's blog, or to ask further questions about this posting.
Reference
Carter, G. L., Montanaro, Z., Linney, C., & Campbell, A. C. (2015). Women's sexual competition and the Dark Triad. Personality And Individual Differences, 74275-279. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2014.10.022
Copyright Susan Krauss Whitbourne 2015
